


Diving too deep for coins

by corporates



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: Jessie's shade, M/M, Tony's POV, good luck finding out which song, horny Tony, the title is from a song, young au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corporates/pseuds/corporates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My English teacher gave us a picture of a forest as a prompt, so have young TBGB... in a forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diving too deep for coins

We swore we were the only ones who knew of this area, with its curling branches, endlessly murmuring streams, patchwork leaves allowing in only the slightest slits of light. We built a rope swing a while ago, and have fallen off more times than we can count, running home to dry off our clothes yet still strolling into our respective homes with sopping black or brown hair. We'd climb the same tree, know its every contour, and never fall off because we'd never let go — of the tree or each other.

It was ours. Him and me, every day, same place, same time.

Not on Sundays though, never on Sundays, oh, no. They were bound to the house on Sundays, or supposedly; he and his brother always snuck out to buy the newspaper as if it were some criminal operation.

He hid the Sunday paper like other sixteen-year-old boys would hide something less holy, something he swore he'd never touch, by the grace of God and the father. Of course, he had me, and he said that was quite enough. “I don't need paper girls to make me feel loved if I have my very own paper boy.” Oversexed and underage, he said. I'm a tragedy, I replied.

Unfortunately, he'd never break the law, even when the law didn't apply out here among the leaves where there was no one to insist it must. Two years is a long time, too long, and I only touch the subject of the transient nature of friendship when I'm trying to convince him that a law like this isn't made for us.

Then one day, he didn't arrive right bang on time with a low grumble and no greeting. I thought I'd got it wrong, I thought it was a Sunday — or maybe I'd hoped. We'd got our Sunday newspaper, though, yesterday, and I hadn't gone out at all; laid in with homework disregarded and a book about guitars and romance, two things I've made it life's only goals to master.

Valiant as I was, I decided to stick around for a while, settle on a mossy outcropping with my feet just trailing in the little stream below, and make one-sided conversation with the birds. But birds don't sing of God or of Africa or about how once the night sky paid attention, they sing about unfaltering happiness and I didn't feel like joining in. Especially when my feet eventually numbed, kicking around in the water, and I decided to stop waiting and made an increasingly frantic dash to his house. I hardly registered it when my toes hit a protruding rock and my knees hit the forest floor, so fixated on the possibility of him being hurt or ill or even--

Or worse, he'd forgotten about me.

A grazed knee was the least of my worries, so I dismissed inspecting it even when I realised the skin had been more than just skimmed and the blood trickling down my leg started to warm my frozen feet. The house for once didn't look inviting as I rushed up to it, all curtains drawn and cars absent, and I knew the answer already even as I collapsed against the front door. Nevertheless, I waited. There was no noise from inside, and I felt a twinge of guilty relief. It was obvious something had happened, but at least he didn't _choose_ to neglect me.

To bother with a second attempt at knocking would be futile, so I trailed my feet as I left down the driveway, only half-hoping for the door to open and for him to tackle me, effortlessly as always.

His mother finally dropped round after an apprehensive day and a restless night to tell me there'd been an accident — nothing life-threatening, dear, just boys and their sports, do you like sports? but he'll be going to university soon and won't have time for you-- for going out. She assured me with a smile that reminded me of his own that he'd call for me as soon as he could.

With a predictability that frightened me, he never came. On the next day, or the day after that, or indeed the day after that. His absence made the forest seem like a place of mourning, not of excitement, adventure, innocent puppy love. The tree felt dangerous without him, and I never climbed it, though I still came to the forest, every day, same place, same time — not on Sundays, though, never on Sundays, oh, no.

(A month later, I found out I had been right. That law wasn't for us; they created a new one, and suddenly two years seemed a very short period of time. I would change it if I could. Not that it mattered now, anyway.)


End file.
